Understanding how adolescent perception of mother-adolescent communication changes over time
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Margaret Elizabeth Brown (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Robert Strack
Abstract: Understanding the effects of health education interventions helps advance work in public health by identifying the most effective strategies to reduce or prevent engagement in risky behaviors. In particular, studying interventions that focus on disproportionately affected populations reduces health disparities and targets the populations with the greatest need. Adolescents continue to represent a population that is disproportionately affected by several health outcomes, especially those related to risk-taking behaviors, such as motor vehicle accidents, suicide, substance use, and high-risk sexual interactions. According to the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) conducted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), engagement in these high-risk behaviors differs according to race and ethnicity. In particular, adolescent youth who identify as Black are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual interactions when compared to their peers, adolescents who identify as white or Latino. This is particularly true in regards to the following behaviors, having had sex before the age of 13, having had sex with multiple partners, and for Black males, having ever had sex during high school. Fortunately, research has indicated that parental relationships and communication are influential when it comes to moderating adolescent behaviors. Specifically, when adolescents perceive their relationships with their parents as open, receptive, and comfortable they report more positively perceived communication with their parents. Similarly, when adolescents perceive their communication with their parent as open, receptive and comfortable they report more positively perceived relationships. However, there are still questions around how the adolescent perception of communication with their parent – in particular their mother – changes over time as well as which factors most significantly influence adolescent perception of both general and sex-specific communication. This study determined the functional form of change in adolescent perception of general and sex-specific communication with their mother as a result of an intervention and follow-up over the course of two-years. In addition, it determined which covariates were most highly correlated with these trajectories of change over time. The piecewise latent growth models showed that adolescent perception of general communication with their mother was somewhat correlated with a life skills intervention rooted in problem behavior theory and was always correlated with adolescent perception of sex-specific communication. Biological sex, whether adolescents identified as either male or female, was also a significant factor, but only for the model on adolescent perception of sex-specific communication with their mother. Adolescent perception of the adolescent-mother relationship, however, was significantly positively correlated with both adolescent perception of general and sex-specific communication with their mother. Interestingly, age was not significantly correlated with adolescent perception of general or sex-specific communication with their mother. Overall, understanding how adolescent perception of communication with their mother changes over time as a result of an intervention helped determine which intervention methods worked well, which covariates were most important to highlight in educational opportunities, and how adolescent development influenced – if at all – educational practices.
Understanding how adolescent perception of mother-adolescent communication changes over time
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Created on 12/1/2018
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2018
- Keywords
- Adolescent, Communication, Relationships, Sexual Health
- Subjects
- Teenagers $x Family relationships
- Mother and child
- Interpersonal communication in adolescence
- Sexual health